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A review of Bookends

by Jane Green

The engrossing, interconnected misadventures of a group of West End yuppies.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Santiago
About Jennifer Santiago

Bookends At the center of "Bookends" is Cath, a 30-something Brit trudging blindly through life, ignoring her own loneliness as she immerses herself completely in the lives of her friends. There's Si, the quintessential gay best friend- devastatingly handsome, unfailingly supportive, brutally honest, completely reliable. There's Josh, a straight-laced banker, and his radiant wife Lucy, who, aside from being interminably cheerful, is arguably the best cook in all of London.

When Lucy happens upon a small storefront for rent and proposes to Cath that they open a bookstore-cafe, Cath is snapped out of her deadening routine, and a series of events is set in motion which threatens to permanently derail everyone's lives. First, there's the appearance of James, the real estate agent who leases the property to Lucy. When Cath finds out he's as aspiring painter and develops a decided attraction to him, she detects chinks in the emotional armor that she's worked for years to construct. Then there's the unexpected reappearance of the stunning but icy Portia, a college friend whom Si, Cath and Josh had long since turned their backs on. When Si begins dating a wicked man that the others despise, an unprecedented wedge is driven into his relationship with Cath. What's worse, the long hours Lucy is putting in at the cafe are impacting her marriage to Josh.

When Cath and Si start suspecting Josh of having an affair, and when Si finds out a terrible dark secret that his new boyfriend has been keeping, Cath's life beings a downward spiral she never could have foreseen, even as she revels in having brought her lifelong dream of owning a bookshop to fruition. And pursuing a relationship with James? Out of the question, considering the state of emotional turmoil she's in.

Will Cath and Si rekindle their friendship with Portia, and can they forgive her sins of 10 years ago? Will Josh and Lucy's marriage weather the storm of Lucy's new career and the presence of their sexy Swedish au pair? Will Si ever recuperate from a relationship gone horribly wrong? Will James hang around long enough to wear Cath down?

Green's ambitious and charming novel examines friendship, marriage, singlehood, forgiveness, fidelity, constancy and change. Her writing is crisp and witty. The tale is told in the voice of the self-deprecating but thoroughly likeable Cath. "Bookends" reads like an engrossing, intelligent prime time soap opera. The only wonder is how Green manages to squeeze so much drama and redemption into a mere 350 pages.

Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: Bookends

Copyright © by Jennifer Santiago, 2002

Reviewed by Jennifer Santiago:
-- The Lovely Bones - by Alice Sebold
-- 30 Minute Meals - by Rachael Ray
-- Raising Blaze - by Debra Ginsberg
-- Backpack - by Emily Barr
-- You Are Not a Stranger Here - by Adam Haslett
-- Bookends - by Jane Green
-- A Confederacy of Dunces - by John Kennedy Toole
-- Ash Wednesday - by Ethan Hawke
-- All Saints' Day - by Brent Benoit
-- The Stepford Wives - by Ira Levin
-- The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating - by David M. Buss
-- Literary New Orleans - by Judy Long (Editor)
-- The Sopranos Family Cookbook - by Allen Rucker; Recipes by Michele Scicolone
-- Atonement - by Ian McEwan
-- The Crimson Petal and the White - by Michel Faber
-- Midnight Bayou - by Nora Roberts
-- The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - by Ann Brashares
-- The Zygote Chronicles - by Suzanne Finnamore
-- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - by J.K. Rowling









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